When Chinese Bank's Trump Lease Ends, Potential Conflict Begins

Robert Kelner is quoted in a Bloomberg article regarding the possibility that the renegotiation of the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China’s lease at Trump Tower could cause conflicts. According to Kelner, the emoluments clause is intended to deal with a gift or salary paid by a foreign leader or government to the president. “If we start to see foreign governments providing gifts directly to the President, that would be problematic,” Kelner says. “But ordinary course-of-business dealings between a state-owned enterprise and a bona fide corporation owned by the President won’t come anywhere close to violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause. The founders would have been surprised to learn that George Washington couldn’t sell his crops to a foreign chartered trading company.”